The probiotics on the sojourn space station are about to "home". Are they the same as their "brothers" on earth?

  The 22 strains of live dairy bacteria from Yunnan will return to Earth three months after entering space with the astronauts.

The Shenzhou 12 manned spacecraft flew into space at 9:22 on June 17, 2021, and successfully entered the Tiangong space station.

22 strains of live dairy bacteria entered space with the astronauts, 11 of which have been registered and preserved for national strain patents.

Probiotics flying with the "Shenzhou" is a new thing for ordinary people, but for professionals, it is of great significance to regard space as a "laboratory" from the perspective of scientific research and the development of the dairy industry. .

  Probiotics are extremely demanding on the living environment

  The term probiotics originated from the Greek word, meaning "good for life" and refers to active microorganisms that can improve the balance of the intestinal micro-ecology of the host (such as animals or humans) and have a positive effect on the host.

Today, probiotics can be said to be "national health products", with a wide variety of products that can meet the needs of people of different ages.

Scientific and appropriate supplementation of probiotics is beneficial to the human body.

  It is understood that probiotics are extremely demanding on the living environment.

For example, anti-allergic probiotics mainly use Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus as the main strains. Among them, Bifidobacterium is an anaerobic bacteria, which is highly sensitive to oxygen, and is most suitable for growth in an environment of 37-41°C, with the lowest growth temperature. It should be kept at 25-28°C, and the pH value should be kept at 6.5-7.0. Anything higher than 8.5 or lower than 4.5 is not suitable for survival.

Lactobacillus is microanaerobic and is more suitable for growth in an environment of 5%-10% carbon monoxide. The most suitable growth temperature is 30-40℃, and the pH value should be maintained at 5.5-6.2. It can still grow at a pH value of about 3.5. , But the activity will be severely reduced.

However, if the temperature is higher than 40°C, the probiotics may die sooner.

  The probiotics of China Resources Jiangzhong Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. participated in the Long March 5B rocket-related space experiment. Liu Wenjun, general manager of the company’s R&D department, told the Science and Technology Daily reporter that probiotics are all isolated from nature, such as dairy products, Healthy breast milk, etc., are separated and stored before being identified.

"The separated probiotics will be dormant in a low temperature environment. They are frozen in an ampoule tube and placed in a refrigerator at minus 80°C. Longer ones can survive for 10-20 years, and some are shorter." Liu Wenjun said.

  Probiotics "God" for faster mutation

  In space, fungi will change. For example, Salmonella will become stronger and more toxic in the microgravity environment of space.

  "The microgravity environment and radiation in space can cause probiotics to mutate and make them rich in specific functions." Liu Wenjun said that probiotics need a certain dose of radiation to induce mutations in the space environment.

"The flight distance is related to time. The longer the time distance, the greater the radiation. For example, the radiation in the Long March 5 B rocket probiotic test chamber had reached 128 rad/si at that time." Liu Wenjun said.

  "The mutation of bacterial species is a very long process. It will only occur in the earth's environment for hundreds of years, but it may be realized in a few days in space. In other words, the use of space can speed up the pace of breeding." Dairy expert Cao Ming believes that probiotics "Go to Heaven" is a "hitchhiking" experiment with scientific exploration value.

  Will probiotics mutate and affect their activity after "going to heaven"?

In April 2016, a storage test of probiotic capsules was carried out on the Space Exploration Technology Company’s "Tianlong" spacecraft.

The method is to divide the same capsules into two groups: one group "Go to the sky" and stay on the International Space Station for one month; the other group honestly store them on the ground for one month.

After the experiment was completed, the two groups of probiotic capsules were analyzed.

The results confirmed that the number of active probiotics in the capsules of the International Space Station is equivalent to the number of probiotics in the surface capsules, indicating that the space environment has no significant impact on the probiotics.

"Acta Astronomy" once published an article from several scientists from NASA Johnson Universe Center, which showed that at least one strain of probiotic bacteria can perform the same function in space microgravity environment as on earth. It can maintain the balance of the intestinal flora.

  After the strain returns, it will undergo targeted screening

  Send probiotics to space for experiments. Why?

In fact, due to the relatively late start of the domestic lactic acid bacteria industry, most domestic dairy companies currently use imported brands of lactic acid bacteria in the production of yogurt, and the technology for collection, cultivation, and separation of the bacteria is monopolized by foreign companies.

  It is understood that the "God" strain comes from Huangshi Laisier Dairy.

After cultivating the "ethnic core" strains, the company did not stop the exploration of strains. Now, 10,400 native protogen strains have been screened from 1008 samples of diverse microorganisms collected in Yunnan, and 8,040 strains have been tested with 16srRNA. Sequencing identified more than 50 strains with development potential, and 9 strains of lactic acid bacteria were independently selected through technological innovation and applied for production.

  "After the strains are returned from space breeding, we will screen the strains for fermentation characteristics, flavor characteristics, metabolites with probiotic functions, and genetic stability, etc., to obtain better quality lactic acid bacteria strains. At the same time By studying the co-cultivation and fermentation system of strains with different characteristics, we have developed more distinctive products suitable for China's human body." Ma Wanping, director of the Yunnan Province Dairy Product Fermentation Engineering Technology Research Center, introduced.

  Ma Wanping said that the purpose of participating in the space breeding scientific research project of China's manned space project is to use the special environmental mutagenesis of space to mutate the strains, and then return to the ground to cultivate new microorganism strains and promote probiotic strains in my country. Some breakthroughs have been made in breeding.